


Nor Out of Hell

by alea_archivist (the_aleator)



Series: A Mere Appendix [16]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Violence, Dark, Drama, Friendship, Gen, Whump, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_aleator/pseuds/alea_archivist
Summary: Whether they will be damaged isn't really the question, but how damaged they will be.
Relationships: Lestrade & John Watson, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Series: A Mere Appendix [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1636375
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10
Collections: Watson's Woes JWP Entries: 2013





	1. Damaged Goods

The smell of blood was thick in his nostrils, and he woke to the sound of moans, and felt he must be in Aghanistan all over again. But that was over, and hell was now.

“Watson?” Came the sound of Holmes’ terse pained whisper, “Watson?” Watson wanted to reply that he was here, that all would be well, but found his throat utterly blocked, for his mouth was cruelly gagged.

Opening his eyes, he blinked as they adjusted to the pale light of their cell, for a cell it undoubtedly was. Holmes, the most dangerous and the most cunning, was chained by his wrists and ankles, and the dark bruising under the collar round his throat would have driven even Mycroft into a towering rage.

One of his arms fell awkwardly, and Holmes cradled it as best he could with the narrowness of his hips, and the sight of dried and crusted blood bloomed colorfully on his dark jacket. A dark contusion ran from his brow to his jaw, and crooked fingers on his other hand were definitely broken, and Watson nearly wept, for there was such beauty in those hands.

His own hands were bound behind him, but his ankles were free and he rose to his feet, and near tripped over the bundle that lay beside him.

If his heart had sank at the sight of Holmes captured beside him, it drowned utterly at the little Inspector lying unconscious on the floor. He too bore the signs of ill-usage, an ugly gash about his temple, the hump of a dislocated shoulder, the signs of broken ribs in the shallow breathing.

Sinking to his knees, Watson nudged him as best he could, but no amount of shaking might wake him, and the least brush of his arm was enough to make the little man groan even under the black veils of a concussion.

If such damage had been done to Holmes and to Lestrade, what might lie in store for him?

The thought drove nearly all the courage out of his chest, and he sat down heavily on the stone floor, and it was only the thought of the past horrors that he had endured that kept him from weeping.

The frantic sight of Holmes trying to escape his pinions, and then to shut his eyes to mask the pain as best he could was almost more than Watson could bear, and he watched with despair as Holmes began to shake almost uncontrollably, beyond his unfathomable control of pain and fear.

That such a wonderful mind might be consumed by fits of insanity, as they almost were from time to time, that such a good man as Lestrade might lie on a stone floor, forgotten and abused, smothered by the blood that no doubt even now leaked into his lungs, and left him to drown inch by slow inch.

Watson gulped air around the gag, trembling as his terror began to deprive him of breath, and felt the harsh spasms of his heart begin to race.

The sound of the door rattled and squeaked as it scraped open, and Watson wondered if the prisoners in the Tower had such fear in their souls at the shuddering squeals of the door.  
  
His insides began to feel as though they were melting with the fear, and he held his breath tightly within his chest, for only that could be claimed as his, and the darkness greeted him.

“Hello Doctor.”


	2. Sink With the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Watson faces the darkness, and finds even greater despair.

The gleam of white in a smile had never seemed so savage, and Watson wrenched at his restraints, pulling away with primal fear at the cruelty that hardened that jaw.

“Tell me, Doctor. Do you know the effects of lye?” A soft chuckle, low and inviting, and Watson cannot help but look on the face of his tormentor. He was a slight man, seemingly frail in body, and yet the shining sickles in his face betray a mind that was ever turning, and grinding with the thoughts of madness.

“It burns one, or so they say, melts and sears the very insides, until one cannot bear the pain any longer, and simply expires away, consumed from the inside out.” He stepped closer, so that the pale, earthy smell of his breath is overwhelming and held the glass before Watson’s eyes with an unholy pleasure in his square face. “A beautiful way to die, don’t you think?”

If Watson was a better man, he should have resisted the fear that crawled its way up from his belly and shook his fingers, and made him draw away further, but he was not. He had once seen a fox torn to pieces under a pack of hounds, and though the blood sport turned his stomach, he had never felt so much in companion with the poor, doomed fox. Terror gripped him.

The little man stepped away with a look of contentment, shaking the glass as he went.

“But that would be too easy, for you, Watson. You deserve something slightly more special, you and Sherlock Holmes, not only for your reputation, but also for interfering in _my_ business.” The little man promised with all the viciousness of a dog gone feral, and the darkness shadowed half of his face, rendering a man into the very image of a devil. “Then all of London will know not to trouble me.”

Watson, despite his aching limbs and his foreboding, protested with the courage that was his trademark,

“Even London will bestir itself, Williams. Even the great cesspool will rise to smite you.”

“Indeed?” Williams said, and flipped open his pocket watch. “I think not, Doctor. Not even for Mr. Sherlock Holmes.” There was a finality to the tone in which he said it, and Watson held in his despair as the little man left, and he was returned to the oubliette.

The door shut behind him, and Watson wondered if this shall be his grave, abandoned and abused in the bowels of the earth.

“Watson. I need – I need Watson.” Holmes jibbered and shook, for he has been freed, to curl into a ball at the very edge of the wall, and Watson reached out with his hands to the other man.

“Holmes,” He cried, despairingly. “Holmes, I am here.”

“Watson!” Holmes went on calling, near groaning in his agony, and Watson’s heart sank into the dirty, filthy soil beneath his shoes. “I have need of you. Please, Watson.”  
  
Watson laid his hands on Holmes' shoulder, and he was struck dumb: the eagle head turned to face him, the eyes fixed and strange, the gaze staring and void, for he had drunk madness, the great mind finally shattered, and Holmes could not recognize even his most faithful friend.

His mouth was dry, and his tongue would form no words, for this was all of his horrors embroidered into one evil blanket, and thrown about his shoulders with all the blessings of the Devil. Was he a man to pray, he might have done, or to curse, but in either case the object of God had never seemed so far away.

“We shall sink with the devil, and sleep in Hell tonight,” He said hollowly, and let his hands fall to his sides as he let his limbs buckle beneath him.

“Doctor?” Lestrade’s reedy voice came out of the darkness. “Is that you? Please, _dear Christ_ , say it is you.” His voice was shaken with pain, and the sound of a deep, shuddering breath beat at Watson with the wings of hope.

“Lestrade” Watson lumbered up, and peered in the darkness for the little man, who sat opposite the door, staring with unseeing eyes before him. “It is I.” As carefully as he dared, he sat beside the Inspector, careful to avoid the damaged shoulder.

“Mr. Holmes has gone mad.”

“I fear as much.” Watson agreed dully, and felt the firm shoulder beside him begin to shake, whether in pain or fear he cannot tell.

“We shall die in this place.” Lestrade vowed, and there was a hiss of pain from beside him as the little man twitched. “I can feel it in my bones.” In a grasp of intuition, Watson let his open hand rest before the dark eyes, which were open but hazy, and confirmed that the Inspector was blind.

Reaching out softly, he lays ahold of the other man’s wrist, and whispered softly, an eternal promise

“But not alone, my friend. Never alone.”

It was a promise he would regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JWP #27 - descriptive passage Challenge. I used this:
> 
> “As soon as he saw the blood, he at once drank in savagery and did not turn away. His eyes were riveted. He imbibed madness. Without any awareness of what was happening to him, he found delight in the murderous contest, and was inebriated by bloodthirsty pleasure.” (St. Augustine, Confessions VI.viii, translated by Henry Chadwick).
> 
> See also The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, with its introduction by John Le Carre where he says "He [Conan Doyle] knew that evil can live for itself alone. He has no need of hate or prejudice, and he was wise enough to give the Devil no labels."


	3. One Man's Salvation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A glimmering of hope for Watson, in the darkest of places.

  
He was half asleep again before he realized that Lestrade's warmth was no longer huddled beside him. Before he drew his next breath, a knife of a needle point was lodged just above his elbow. With a gasp, he looked down to see the silver syringe sticking out of his dirty coat, and flexed the muscle in a poor attempt to dislodge it.

"That the famous doctor Watson should die of a cocaine overdose in the gutters of London, forgotten, and relegated to small print of type on page three, is more than ironical, and in this case it amuses me," Williams said, and between his frail fingers rested the plunger, ready to press home the drug and with it, Watson's life.

“To kill a man’s heart is easy but to kill a man in the hearts of every man who knows him? That is a true achievement.” Williams cocked his head as if to study his future victim’s face, and his finger writhed with his control.

Drawing a breath slowly between his teeth, Watson’s mind slowed to one unfathomable and deep thought – _he does not want to die_. With that, he steeled a soldier’s instinct, and a doctor’s knowledge of the dark demons that crawl the recesses of such a filthy soul.

“That isn’t so much,” he protested weakly. “Sherlock Holmes is the man to whom kings play court, and whose reputation is known wherever the sun sets. It is one thing to kill the footman, another to kill the man who leads him.” He watched keenly as the realization dawned on Williams’ face and the repressed gritting of teeth.

The key, he knew with a story teller’s understanding, was not to press too hard.

“If you destroy Holmes, countries will cry out for your blood and the whole Empire and all of London will know that this is a man not to be crossed. And in destroying Holmes…” he let his sentence drag off feebly, and pasted a dismayed look on his face.

“I will destroy you, Doctor,” Williams muttered, and something of glee lit up the crags and ravines of his face. “Perhaps you might even do yourself in, and save me the bother,” he said, almost cheerfully, and whipped out the needle. With the back of one bony fist, he hit Watson across the face, half-stunning him and snapping his jaw shut with a grind of teeth.

Watson let himself be dragged by his arm, and noted with something of victory that his hands and feet were unbound. He threw open the door to the cell with a clang, and marched over to Holmes, and then turned to Watson with a sick look of expectation.

“You will do it, Doctor,” he said, handing the syringe to Watson. “It was, after all, your idea," he pointed out, and Watson wondered if Williams thought him so much of a coward, that he might save himself at the cost of Holmes. He looked down at the silver needle, and killing as much of his conscience as he dared, raised it to the crook of Holmes’ arm. The other man does not stir, and Williams waited impatiently.

That a solution of cocaine, that dreadful derivation of the coca plant might be their salvation ailed Watson’s soul, for so often he has attempted to forbear Holmes’ use of the drug. Yet what might be a dead man’s dose, need not be for Holmes.

It was the lesser of two evils, for his death and Holmes’ insanity could only be the more evil of the two, but still he shrunk from the task.  
  
One man's damnation, he thought slowly, might be one man's salvation, and plunged the solution home.

A breathless minute passed and Watson thought that his victory was dissolving into salt, when one grey eye shot open.

“Williams,” Holmes greeted pleasantly, and rose to his feet as gracefully as he had ever done. “I believe that you and I have an overdue reckoning.” It was not for nothing that Holmes was regarded as an excellent boxer, and he proved it in that moment with a punch that destroyed much of the cartilage in Williams’ nose, and left him stunned on the floor.

“Quick Watson!” Holmes cried. “The cell door – and then, perhaps, an escape if we may. No dawdling, Inspector!” He strode forward somewhat hastily, and would have fallen if not for Watson’s arm. Lestrade rose gamely, following the sound of Holmes’ voice, and latched onto Watson’s sleeve.

The ascent from the subterranean levels of the estate to the first floor was one of near misses and close calls, and the sound of their bumbling and fatigued footsteps lurched through the house.

“No, no, not there, Watson.” Holmes hissed. “The other door, as you can clearly see by the depression of the carpet fibers, and the curious incident of the butler’s cat…” He trailed off into murmurings, and Watson pushed forward more swiftly, for the miraculous cure of the cocaine was slowly wearing off.

* * *

  
Yelling filled the air, for Williams’ shouts had raised all of his henchman on the estate into a chase, and Watson knew that he was not so much running for an escape as he was running for his life, with Lestrade hanging onto his sleeve and Holmes on his shoulders, for Williams will not take being shamed twice.

They were dead if they could not escape.

With his breath loud in his ears, Watson stopped heavily on the gravel drive, and saw the gate with a glimmer of hope in his soul. Victory was faint, as was the sun on the horizon, but it was there.

The sound of loud footsteps were close, too close behind them, and Watson panted as he helped Holmes to his feet.

“We shall never make it,” Lestrade gasped behind them, and Watson could smell them, for they were close and drawing closer, and the cruel faces of the men approaching goaded Watson into action, and he flung Holmes’ good arm over his shoulders and took a dozen paces towards the estate’s wall.

“Wait…” Holmes called faintly and Watson turned to see Lestrade limping determinedly back towards the door.

“I will not leave you, Lestrade,” he called, and took another stride as he saw Lestrade’s wincing smile over his shoulder.

“Leave?” Lestrade questioned softly between his pants of breath, and the perspiration that trickled red down his face. “Never.” He said emphatically, and his slim fingers tap at his chest for emphasis. “But I’ll not damn you and Mr. Holmes on account of me. This is the law's business.”

“Inspector.” Watson retorted. “This isn’t –” But he was interrupted by Lestrade and his intense dark eyes, unseeing, but seeing all too much.

“No,” Lestrade admitted, and there was a world of depth in that one word. But the little man drew a deep breath, shuddered and then turned.

“Go,” Lestrade said gently, as if this were the last of his reserves, and stretched to his not considerable height, fingers tracing the doorframes, trembling, to block the doorway for as long as he could.

There was only time for Watson to sprint to the wall as best he could, and he ignored the tears that splash his cheeks as he hefted Holmes up to the top, and winced as a boot fell heavily on his wounded shoulder. He scrambled over once Holmes has, and crashed to the wet ground with a gracelessness of sleepless days and wounded nights.

The iron wrought fence hung between them with a deathly chill, and Watson could only glance back over his shoulder at the side of Lestrade's defiant face, even as he stared into the unknowable with only the hope of a cold grave and the slight defense of his badge and his body between them. Watson turned away, and hefted the tall half-unconscious body of his dearest friend, and dared not turn back, even with the sickening sound of a sharp snap and an agonized scream, half cut off and bleeding out into the surrounding night.

_One man’s salvation_ , he thought wearily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WP #28 - use a plant Challenge (I used the coca plant, very tenuously).


	4. The Better Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watson has been rescued from Williams, but does that truly mean he has been saved?

Watson woke to the smell of over starched linen and the broad bulk of Mr. Holmes, who sat with his hands resting on his stick, and his light grey eyes deeply hooded in thought, a composition in dignity.

He did not ache nearly so much as he thought he should, considering what little fragments of pell-mell memories he did remember, but drew a quick, sharp breath as he raised himself up on his elbows. 

“Holmes?” He choked out, his throat dry with disuse.

“Sherlock is well enough, or so they tell me.” The bass tones of Mycroft rolled soothingly over Watson, and he lowered himself back to the pillows with no little relief.

“And Williams? You have him?” Watson queried softly, wondering if the bitter taste in the back of his mouth was hate, or just disgust. The big man’s shoulders slipped downwards as the mountainous chest sighed. Mycroft was silent for a long moment. On another man, Watson would have called it hesitance. 

“No.” Watson scowled, and reached for the coverlet. “Doing will not serve us now, Doctor. Williams has fled from London. His home is deserted, and his henchman have flown. In this instance, I am moved, or as much as I may be moved, to assert myself after his demise.”  
  
The rolling way that Mycroft shifted was oddly bellicose for the usually ponderous man, and Watson held himself very still. Mycroft tapped the top of his cane with two light fingers. Watson's eyes were drawn by the movement. It seemed dangerous somehow, more than it should be. “I have discovered, Dr Watson, somewhat to my surprise, that each man’s heart intimately possesses the desire to kill.”

“Revenge.” Watson muttered softly, more to his linens than to Mycroft, but with an edge of something feral and dangerous, something that he thought he had buried in the red swirling sands of Afghanistan half a life time ago. Mycroft met his eyes unabashedly, for there was a kinship there, written in each protective soul. The other man nodded once, slowly, in affirmation, and drew himself together as he prepared to rise.

“Tell me,” Watson called, voice thin as a shadow and as fleeting, “does the Inspector still live?”

Mycroft halted in his staid gait to the door, and was there resignation in the set of those massive shoulders?

“I cannot say, Doctor. Good day.”

Watson shut his eyes to the familiar darkness, where silence hung heavy, but sleep was long in coming, for Williams might have been beyond their reach, but the terror he had inspired reached into Watson's dreams. 

* * *

It was two mornings before he was allowed to leave, and three before he dared to visit Holmes, feeling himself not yet armored to survive such an endeavor. If Holmes was yet a madman, if his will should be sapped from him, if all had been lost, and what had not been risked for it?

All, and if for nothing…?

He stepped before Holmes’ room, more like a ghost than a man in his tremors, and knocked twice, entering as hesitantly as a Protestant before the Pope, unsure of his reception, yet terrified of censure, all sinews prepared for woeful flight.

But those great, grey gimlet eyes fastened onto his in a moment, and at once the clarity of the heavens descended, for all was found, all was not lost. Grace was restored.

“My dear Watson,” Holmes greeted, extending one damaged arm in greeting. “Do sit down, for we have much to speak of, you and I.” The congeniality in his voice was so utterly natural and benign that Watson was at once suspicious and taken back. Well accustomed to his flat mate’s control, the feeling with which Holmes greeted him was at once foreign and unexpected.

“What have we to speak of?” He inquired cautiously, sitting gingerly. “It is all behind us now.”

Holmes rested his chin on his chest, as the grey eyes sharpened.

“Behind us, my friend? Or before us, beside us, about us every which way? Our troubles are not yet over, indeed, may now have just begun. Life is in the living, not in the forgetting.”

Watson ducked his gaze downwards, feeling shamed, as if he had been found wanting in some way. Holmes’ voice lowered and gentled, as if he was soothing a frightened dog or a skittish horse.

“Some things, Watson, should never be forgotten.”

* * *

It was just after eleven o’clock, on the fifth day since their escape that Inspectors Gregson and Hopkins came to call at Baker Street.

“Hello Inspectors,” Watson greeted, shoving his revolver into the gap in the armchair with a nervous twitch, and stands to shake hands. “I’m afraid Holmes is still in hospital, if you wanted to see him. Recovering,” he added somewhat unnecessarily, for no doubt news has swept through Scotland Yard with all the grimness of a black-edged letter.

“We’ve just come from there, Doctor,” Gregson said, somewhat gruffly, as he moved further into the room with his heavy tread. Hopkins’ face was unusually grim and Watson wondered if this has ought to do with Holmes or himself at all.

“You are still looking then?” Gregson startled and his face flushed, almost with anger, as he bit out a reply

“I may not like the man personally, Dr. Watson, but I’d leave no stone unturned if I thought it would help. If I had to ask every man jack in London, I should do it.” More quietly, Hopkins added with a pair of haunted blue eyes.

“He’s one of ours, you see, and we protect our own. If not for him, then for ourselves, because it might have been one of us.”

Hopkins’ words hit him like a knife to the chest, and Watson flinched backwards.

Gregson took a step closer, fingering the edge of his hat with his thumb, as he looked the doctor over: thin, tired, and looking as if he were a waif child that wanted to run quite far away and never to come back.

“We shall send word, when we find him, you have my word.” He promised, and hoped it was not an idle promise.

“Of course.” Watson echoed hollowly, and sat down with a deep shuddering breath when both men had tromped back to the street.

* * *

They do send word, by which time Holmes is convalescing at Baker Street, and acting most peculiarly indeed.

“You must go, Watson.” Holmes insisted, looking pale but not fragile over the agony columns.

“But what if he is dead, Holmes?” Watson queried softly, turning his back to the other man with the pretext of staring out into the street from the window.

Holmes did not deign to give an answer, but Watson felt the delicate question tuck into his coat, and throb against his heart as he made his way into a cab, and into the very heart of London. What losses; what gains? Watson has been a poor gambler before this, but the cost has never been so high.

He stood at some distance, watching the solemn procession from the house in silent sorrow. Each man carrying the stretcher bore a carefully constructed mask of emotionless gravity, and whether that meant Lestrade is alive or dead he cannot tell.  
  
One slim bloodied hand lay beside the stretcher, and Watson ached to put it back, for compassion moved him with all the injustice of it, and fueled his anger as he clenched his fist tightly, impotently. They had not so much achieved victory, as scraped up the remainders of the case, and that failure bit at the darkness in him, that he has lost so much and all for this.  
  
Lestrade slipped away into the night, born by the careful attentions of his colleagues, and Watson returned to Baker Street, still uncertain, still afraid, and still angry.

Still haunted by ghosts which he could not control, nor dared to confront. Little damage had been done to him, in comparison to either Holmes or the Inspector, and yet he found himself shrinking from the shadowed walks, and darting glances about Baker Street furtively and starting from even Mrs. Hudson’s familiar tread.

* * *

“He may never walk again.” Watson could hear the hesitance in Dr. Hardy’s voice. “I suspect, in fact, that he shall never wake, for I have never seen a man survive so much and live. Yet you say he has a will of steel, and that counts in his favor.” Hardy scratched at his collar, and strummed his fingers on his coat. “Even if he does wake, he shall never be the same man.”

Watson nodded silently, for the news was not unexpected. He had seen the results of Williams’ brutality, and it had turned his stomach, for all that he had thought himself hardened to it. Sallow flesh was bruised to black, where it was not marred by cuts and all manner of welts and contusions. He had been beaten about the head with any number of fists, and his face was a swollen mass of bruises, almost shapeless. 

Stepping closer to the door, for the brother Holmes’ influence had been sufficient to secure a private room, Watson thought he heard a voice murmuring. Pushing open the door, he discovered that Holmes sat as bizarrely as he always did, legs crossed beneath him on the chair, long fingers tapping on the bedside table.

“You’ve come, Watson.” It was not a question, and Watson drew in his breath, for had he seemed so much a coward, so much less than the man he might have been. He avoided looking at the little man lying on the bed, still unconscious, as small and still as he was never in life, but his eyes were drawn to Holmes almost magnetically.

“I had thought you might not, old boy.” The words were drawn, and emotionless, and Watson wondered that the fingers halted their tapping. The next words came out almost in a rush. “You have seemed so different these past days, unlike yourself.” Watson wanted to plead that of course he did, but found the words dried up, for there was what might have been an undercurrent of worry in Holmes’ voice, in a lesser man.

Holmes turned his head to look Watson directly in the eye, and his grey eyes shone under the pale light with what might have been tears, and his next words warmed to Watson’s heart rather than his ears.

“It is not your fault, you know. You are blameless in this.”

Watson wondered how much Holmes should remember, that he spoke so emphatically, for he wished to protest that of course he is not blameless, that much of this fell on his shoulders, but he remained silent, still haunted by the ghosts which Holmes has attempted to exorcise.

He alone of them is wounded to the soul rather than to the body, and he finds it to be almost fatal, for what is physical might heal, but what is not lingers and festers. But it is long after Holmes has departed, slowly, still limping that he speaks up, in a choked voice.

“Blameless? Or not held to blame?”

For he remembered the needle, and the chase, and dared not speak of it to anyone, for they were deeds done in darkness, and sins sunk in shame. 

And he cannot find the better part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JWP #31 - Continuation Challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> JWP #25 - Edward Gorey Challenge. This is based on 'The Gashlycrumb Tinies'. Based on the three appropriate ones, namely 'G is for George smothered under a rug' & 'S is for Susan who perished of fits' & 'J is for James who took lye by mistake'. 
> 
> This fic was continued for three more JWP days, which will follow shortly.


End file.
